


doors exist for a reason, you furry

by LightningMcGay



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Original Character - Freeform, Original Deaf Character - Freeform, i’m so sorry it’s ooc bruce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 11:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18467797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningMcGay/pseuds/LightningMcGay





	doors exist for a reason, you furry

bruce looks at the man lying on the bed, heart twisting. barely 25. 

 

too young.

 

too young to have gone through this. his gaze moves over to the covered leg. shattered kneecap. a broken arm, severely bruised ribs. various cuts spread along his head and face.

 

bruce had barely gotten him out of the rubble of the demolished building. 

 

why the joker had chose to blast a cafe was beyond him. it was a soft place, not very busy, no shady business. 

 

bruce had waited for something else. for the joker to pull off a major catastrophe on the other side of gotham. but there had been nothing. no trap, no bait.

 

why destroy an almost empty cafe? 

 

his eyes stray to the boy’s face, relaxed and passive in unconsciousness.

 

could he have been trying to take out this boy? what bone did joker have to pick with a college student? 

 

no, it was probably the owners. he would have to check them. 

 

he takes one last look at the patient and something in his heart twists. 

 

* * *

 

bruce doesn’t know when he goes from looking up the owners to the boy.

 

sage, he corrects himself. sage rosewood. he grimaces at the name. 

 

a psychology major, working jobs to support himself. lived in the streets after his parents had been murdered for being in a supposed magic cult.

 

well, that explains the name.

 

picked up by an orphanage when he was 11, only for it to be blown up by bane’s men two years later. 

 

the explosion had taken away most of his ability to listen. a broken leg, scars etched on his back and stomach from being impaled. 

 

bruce buries his head in his hands. twice, he had failed to save this boy.

 

( he wonders how many more he will disappoint. how many more would hope for a way to live, to be saved, only to meet their demise. )

 

sage had then been transferred to a wayne funded orphanage where he had lived relatively disaster free.

 

he shakes his head softly. who was he kidding, the boy had a fucked up childhood. he probably carried more ptsd than bruce himself. 

 

sage rosewood. he remembers the name. adds it to the list of people he couldn’t save.

 

( like jason, he reminds himself, and clears his mind. guilt has always been his biggest motivator. )

 

* * *

 

a week passes. he investigates more about the owners, digs deeper and deeper, but there’s nothing. 

 

in frustration, he passes it off as another one of joker’s antics. there is no reason behind it, he thinks. chaos is mindless. it does not care. 

 

in another week, he sees the deranged man behind the arkham bars.

 

his relentless search of answers eventually leads him to gotham central hospital’s room 17-h at 2 am.

 

he enters through the window. there’s a small, barely there voice, and his hands move instinctively to his belt. 

 

sage rosewood looks at him with alarmed grey eyes.

 

bruce curses. he’s not good at comforting people, and according to dick, he shouldn’t even be trying to do that in his suit.

 

but sage seems to calm himself down easily. his breathing slows down, the monitor shows his heart rate slowing down steadily.

 

bruce nods in reply to absolute awkward silence. he stands there for a few seconds.

 

‘stop glowering, old man, and start talking.’ it’s jason’s voice that edges him.

 

he sits down on the chair, aware, way too aware of sage’s gaze burning him.

 

to be honest, bruce could have thought this through. what is he supposed to say to him? after a ruined life, not being able to save his future, how can he look him in the eye?

 

“you know,” sage starts, “most people use the door.” he points at the door, trying to prove his point.

 

“i’m not most people.” he replies shortly, still trying to figure out what to say.

 

sage looks at him amusedly like he knows a secret bruce doesn’t. 

 

“why are you awake right now?” he asks. 

 

he shrugs. “insomnia. i’ve had it since, well,” he pauses, “forever, i guess.”

 

bruce nods. he has nothing here to accomplish, the burning realisation hits him, he doesn’t even know why he came here. he stands up abruptly, causing a sharp spike in sage’s heart rate.

 

it shouldn’t be possible, but somehow, the air got heavier in the room.

 

sage turns his head very slowly, glares at the machine, “fuck you, honestly,” he hisses, and bruce feels the tension break.

 

bruce smirks behind the mask. clark was right. in all his life, he’s amused by people who have sharp tongues.

 

“i’m sorry. that one’s on me.” he murmurs. “i came to check up on you.” he adds, feeling like he owes at least this much, a false explanation, to this boy.

 

he moves to the window, unable to face him much longer.

 

his foot’s nearly out when sage breaks from his trance. “hey, wait, mr. batman, sir? wait!”

 

bruce turns his head to see sage almost out of his bed, hand tightly clenched around the stand, looking at him with big eyes and an open mouth.

 

“uh, sorry, i thought i had lost you.” he laughs nervously.

 

bruce stares at him blankly.

 

quick tongue and a dumbass. the list kept growing. he moves closer, making sure his moves are visible to not aggravate the boy.

 

he helps him lie on the bed, makes sure the machines are attached. he moves to stand far but sage’s hand rests on his arm, preventing him from moving.

 

“i, just, thank you so much.” sage rambles. “you saved my life. i-i’m gonna take my hand off now. sorry.”

 

bruce shakes his head. “there’s no need to thank me.”

 

“you think you don’t deserve it.” grey eyes squint at him. 

 

bruce snorts. “get a degree first, then try to psychoanalyse me.”

 

he thought it would be impossible but sage’s face lightens up, making him look even younger. “ha, you researched me! that makes even more sense. you think you failed to do your duty after the trauma and all.”

 

bruce gently removes his hand from the other’s grasp.

 

the wonder disappears from sage’s face almost instantly. “shit, i’m, i’m sorry. i speak too much. i shouldn’t have said that.”

 

bruce stops his rambling by a swift finger on his lip. he nods, trying to reassure the boy that it’s fine.

 

sage breathes. 

 

“i don’t know what saviour complex goes around in your mind, mr. batman, but i’m just glad i’m alive. you saved me. thank you.”

 

bruce’s lips curl up before he can stop himself.

 

* * *

 

a month later, sage is finally released from the hospital. despite his confident claims of having made it, bruce knows he’s terrified of the debt he’s in.

 

he’s not around to see the look on sage’s face when they tell him that it’s all been paid by wayne enterprise, but he can imagine it’s very close to the relieved look when they had told him that he could go home.

 

it had been killing that boy, to be holed up in the room, nothing to keep his mind at bay.

 

bruce knows that he’s being creepy. he convinces himself that he’s keeping watch over the room just in case that something happens. 

 

* * *

 

he smirks under his mask when he hears sage shriek, curse, and drop his dog in surprise.

 

“i-you, how the hell do you know where i live?” he asks incredulously, trying to calm his pet down.

 

it’s only when sage’s other hand rests over his heart that he feels guilty of doing so. 

 

“it’s not very hard to find that out.” he shrugs it off.

 

the blond looks at him and then sighs. “you know, that’s illegal.”

 

“most things i do are illegal.”

 

“does that include dressing up like a furry?” 

 

bruce glares at him. he had looked it up after tim had called him that for the seventh time. he had not been amused. internally, he sighs. sharp tongue, smart mind, no self preservation.

 

 

* * *

 

the second time he enters sage’s apartment, it’s 4 am. he had left tim on the outlook, it had been a slow night.

 

bruce knows this is irresponsible, not like him, but it’s became a habit of his. passing the building opposite to sage’s, he assures himself that the boy is alive.

 

the light is always open, curtains always pulled.

 

he thinks it’s ironic. like sage, his mind always hidden, always working, always thinking. 

 

he snorts. it’s hypocritical of him to think that.

 

today, he can’t resist visiting his favourite citizen, as dubbed by dick.

 

he is met by a bat pointed at his face. grey eyes glare at him before they relax, tension leaving. 

 

“you know, there’s a reason doors exist.”

 

bruce smirks. “i’m proving a point here. your security is pathetic.”

 

sage laughs. “is that a joke, mr. batman? is the world ending? do you have a fever?”

 

“you are insufferable.” he says.

 

sage finger guns at him.

 

* * *

 

“rosewood?”

 

“yeah?”

 

“why are there mouse traps along every window and door?”

 

“oh, so you do know what doors are!”

 

a blank long stare. 

 

“they’re security.”

 

“against what?”

 

“rodent infestation.”

 

* * *

 

bruce slips in the room, paranoia edging him to move quicker and quicker.

 

the room is dark.

 

there is no light.

 

this is wrong. there’s always light. sage doesn’t sleep, he works and works until he collapses. 

 

he couldn’t have gone out either. sage has no close friends, he doesn’t stay out late.

 

bruce’s stomach coils. something could have gone terribly wrong. 

 

he can’t fail sage rosewood again.

 

he opens the door to his bedroom, expecting the worst, to see the room in a mess, with signs of a fight, books and clothes spread, bed ruffled, desk broken.

 

he doesn’t expect sage to be sleeping. he stalks every corner of the room, making sure that nothing has moved from its original position.

 

it’s only then that he lets himself relax.

 

sage is alive and breathing and okay and for once, he’s sleeping.

 

he looks at peace. calm. no gears turning in his head, no brain overthinking, making up unrealistic scenarios.

 

bruce swallows. he tends to forget how young sage truly is. 

 

he takes another look and walks out, reassuring himself with each step that he won’t find a golden head split open if he looks back. 

 

* * *

 

“see, this is why you should use doors.”

 

sometimes, bruce curses his choice in people. 

 

he bites back, “normal people don’t shower at 3 am.”

 

sage looks strangely scandalised even when he’s half naked. “hey, normal people don’t break in another guy’s apartment on a weekly basis!” 

 

“normal people would get better security.”

 

sage huffs, like an insolent child. “still breaking and entering.” he grumbles on.

 

bruce turns around to give him space.

 

“you know, you can just ask nicely and i’ll give you a key. you keep scaring jesus.”

 

“jesus? who is– your dog’s name is jesus?” bruce turns around too fast, sage’s shirt isn’t on yet. he freezes.

 

but the boy doesn’t seem to mind. instead, he pins bruce with a look, unaware or maybe deeming bruce’s blatant staring at his surgical scars irrelevant. 

 

“you mean to tell me that you’re the world’s greatest detective and you didn’t know that my dog is named jesus?”

 

* * *

 

“i’m putting you in danger. they can’t, nobody can find you out.” he whispers.

 

‘you matter too much to me.’ he leaves unsaid.

 

he doesn’t think sage had heard that.

 

but he had.

 

* * *

 

bruce doesn’t visit him for days. he passes through the apartment one night, still avoiding the boy.

 

he spots a mop head of messy blonde hair, looking like they hadn’t been brushed, sitting by the window, in hopes of catching a glimpse of his city’s dark knight.

 

everything golden dies, he reminds himself. 

 

robin patrols that area from the next day.

 

* * *

 

it snows for the third time in november, enough to settle. it’s chilly and sage’s favourite season, despite the cold making his knee ache.

 

he comes home to find a present wrapped in black paper, little bats all over it, a note wishing him happy birthday. 

 

sage laughs, loud and empty. for the first time in years, he feels terribly lonely. 

 

* * *

 

a crash disturbs sage from his work. 

 

he curses, gets whatever he can find under his bed as a weapon, and runs as fast as he can on his pained leg.

 

batman lies on his carpet, a table collapsed near him. he’s bleeding from his side, the suit torn open, his ribs heavily bruised. there’s red everywhere.

 

sage bites back bile.

 

is he supposed to wait for robin? superman?

 

he takes a look at the man. years of living on the streets has given him enough knowledge to know the severity of wounds.

 

he can die from blood loss. batman could die.

 

as infuriating as the man may be, sage likes him. 

 

he feels.. too much, all at once. there’s helplessness and pain, hope and desperation, but above all, it’s anger. 

 

anger that this man chose to disrupt the peace he had made with himself over the years, anger that it was so, so easy for him to do so, anger because sage was weak, always had been, and so painfully lost and confused and alone that he hadn’t even gave it a second thought before letting a superhero, of all people, in his little heart. 

 

anger because there he was there again, repeating his mistakes. 

 

he stumbles on his way to get the medical kit he has, trembling and shaking. he hasn’t used it for years, hasn’t been this stressed or anxious. 

 

batman wakes up soon after. he’s fazed, of course, who wouldn’t be, after almost dying? but he seems to recognise the interior of the room quick enough to not panic.

 

“batman, are you okay? i didn’t know whether someone would show up and you were unconscious and–“

 

“sage?”

 

“yeah?”

 

“thank you.”

 

( it occurs to him later, it’s the first time the vigilante has ever used his name. )

 

“uh, batman? it’s getting late,” sage starts nervously, “i mean, it’s actually getting early. sun’s rising and all.”

 

bruce knows he should get up, walk out of the room, walk out of his life.

 

he never knew he would become so weak when it came to sage rosewood. 

 

“you want to kick me out?” he says, trying to see sage smile. 

 

if he’s leaving, that’s the last thing he wants to see. the big, toothy smile flashing on his face because of bruce. 

 

sage looks far from amused. “hey, no! it’s dangerous for your identity, you idiot.”

 

“....i would rather you stay.” he admits a beat later, looking less personally offended. 

 

bruce knows he has fucked up in that moment.

 

“stay?” he asks, mouth dry, already knowing the answer.

 

“forever.” sage replies, and bruce knows he’s lost. 

 

* * *

 

“did you look?”

 

“under the mask? no.”

 

* * *

“why do i keep coming back to you?” he blurts out. 

 

there’s no answer.

 

he looks at the younger man. “no psychoanalysis this time?”

 

“i have no idea!” sage exclaims, lopsided grin making bruce’s heart feel like it’s on a plane always meant to crash. 

 

* * *

 

“i’m in love with you.” he admits one night.

 

sage looks at him and then signs a ‘what?’ in asl. his hearing aids are lying a few feet away.

 

bruce sighs. 

 

* * *

 

sage admits his unhealthy obsession of overthinking things. half of it comes from his anxiety, but honestly, it’s just ingrained in him now. paranoid, constant vigilance, his second name. 

 

he thinks because it’s the only way to keep everything else at a safe distance. his mind is full of things and sometimes he feels overwhelmed, exhausted of living. 

 

but of course, he can’t help not knowing. his genuine curiosity, no self control, and penchant for trouble had landed him in disasters a lot of times.

 

he wonders when he had stopped trying to figure something about the gotham bat that had a strange habit of breaking the law, and also breaking into his house, and instead started to make fun of his persona, cape, and bandwagon of heroes.

 

( “aren’t you supposed to walk an empty street alone, like, on a boulevard, of broken dreams and angst, the only road that you’ve ever known?”

 

”i do know that song, sage.”   

 

“woah, how? one of the robins? y’know, the ones you have despi— NO, PUT MY DOG DOWN!” )

 

what made sage so invested in him? the thrill, the mystery, the constant chase had grown old for him. so what now?  

 

he tries not to think if he did know who was behind the mask. 

 

* * *

 

 

“does superman think in kryptonian or english?”

 

“he doesn’t.”

 

“what?”

 

“he doesn’t think.”

 

“oh.”

 

* * *

 

“dear god, it truly is a rodent infestation.” sage mutters to himself, sounding both horrified and excited. 

 

“what?” bruce asks.

 

sage points to the note on his fridge, signed in glitter pen and a smiley face.

 

bruce makes sure to have a long talk with barbara later. 

 

* * *

 

sage does have his bad days. and they’re not pretty. it’s late march when bruce enters the room to find him staring into empty space.

 

he takes one look at sage and opens his arms and is attacked by a sobbing man. he holds him in his embrace, tight against himself, afraid that he’ll fall apart if bruce lets go just a little. 

 

hours pass until sage drifts off to sleep, still whispering soft nonsense about a noah.

 

-

 

bruce looks noah up.

 

he’s met with a photo of a 12 year old deceased girl who had been with sage in the orphanage.

 

never again, he vows.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“you know–“

 

“do you always need to say that?”

 

“yes.”

 

* * *

 

bruce is not on earth when there’s an attack in gotham.

 

he tears down everyone on his way back.

 

tim and alfred are safe, dick not even in gotham to begin with. he thinks of light hair and starry eyes, of dog fur and a chair full of dumped hoodies. 

 

how he never even got to say goodbye.

 

-

 

he enters the hospital room through the window.

 

“you know, most people use the door.” sage grins up at him.

 

he takes a moment to see him properly, to soak in the familiar blond hair, his too small nose, the smallest dimple on his cheek, there’s a scar running down his young face, just along his eye.

 

he nearly cries, there and then.

 

he marches up to the bed, takes sage’s hand in his own and says, “you’re not allowed to die.”

 

“i love you too, b.”

 

* * *

 

sage rosewood has always lived like this. with constant hopes.

 

but he doesn’t call himself an optimist.

 

every step of his life, he’s looked back and reassured himself that it gets better.

 

now, as he looks back, he realises that it already has. 

 

* * *

 

 

“i’m bruce wayne.”

 

“so batman is, like, your fursona?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
